


The Garage

by k21



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gay Panic, Gay Will Byers, Internal Monologue, Internalized Homophobia, Stranger Things 3, duffers if you don't make will gay its over for y'all, male OC but just for one line, mike is stupid, this is a no byler event only, will has a crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:30:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22271878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k21/pseuds/k21
Summary: will's mind after mike says the infamous "it's not my fault you don't like girls!" in the garage
Kudos: 15





	The Garage

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this a few days after st3 came out and was very proud of it then so hopefully you enjoy
> 
> also it should be pretty obvious but these thoughts are from the perspective of a confused closeted teenage boy in the 1980s and don't reflect my own views (ex. homophobia)? its important to me that you all know that
> 
> also also sorry if there's any grammar/capitalization mistakes! i wrote it all on my phone originally and i have autocaps turned off so if there's anything i missed when going back and editing i'm sorry!

“It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” Mike yelled in his face. The words rang in the garage like an early morning alarm - not pleasantly. The sound of the pounding rain disappeared and Will was left alone in his mind.

Within milliseconds, thousands of thoughts began rushing into Will’s head. How did Mike know? The only person Will had ever confided in about being confused was Jonathan, and this summer had discouraged him even farther from speaking to his friends about his confusion. All through middle school Will had tried his hardest to try and conceal his sexuality in any way possible. Had he let something slip? Had he done a horrible job and instead made it obvious he would rather be holding hands with a boy than replicating the relationships everyone else in their school had? Maybe it was when that girl asked him to dance at the snowball. Besides the fact that he had only talked to her once, in 6th grade, and that she had literally insulted him to get his attention, he was also uncomfortable with the situation for obvious reasons. As his friends pushed him towards her and encouraged him to seize the opportunity, every alarm in Will’s head went off, as if saying “I know you don’t want to do this, but it’ll make you normal. You have to”. 

Maybe it was simply an insult. The other kids at school had always called Will gay and other, more offensive terms meaning the same thing in attempts to provoke him. Was it that obvious to everyone, or did they all see it as a horrible thing to be and wanted to be mean to him? Was Mike joining them in the bullying, betraying their entire lifelong friendship?

Another question was ushered into his already full brain. Why did Mike think it was a problem? A fault? How in the world was Will's unspoken sexuality ruining Mike's summer? Ruining Mike's relationship? Ruining Mike's life? Will had spent a lot of time with himself debating on if something was wrong with him or if he was just a different kind of normal. Maybe he was looking at it wrong, and Mike had just confirmed that Will's disinterest in girls was an issue that needed to be fixed. 

Why him? Why was he chosen to be different? All Will had wanted to do was just be a kid for a little while longer and play dungeons and dragons with his closest friends, but everything was being ruined. First, he was stuck in the upside down, then he was possessed by the mind flayer, now he’s still feeling the after effects, and throughout all of those horrible events, he had also been struggling with himself. Why did Will have to be the one to carry all of these burdens? The list of things Will had been bullied for was excruciatingly long, and he didn’t want to add yet another thing onto it. Jonathan had told him stories about the very few out boys at Hawkins High, and they never ended well in terms of acceptance. He thought about these horror stories so much he had constructed a saying: note to self: don’t be gay in Indiana.

Though it was only a few seconds of Will's face contorted in a baffled, hurt and shocked face towards Mike, the thoughts and doubts seemed to go on for hours. Every single thing he had thought about himself being gay in the past 3 years emerged again like they were water stuck in his ear after swimming. He wished that dumb, cute Davey Anderson had never been in their stupid 6th grade science class and caused Will to rethink his entire life and views. 

Is that even how he meant it? What if Mike was just defending El and recalling how Will wanted to only hang out with his friends? What if Will was overthinking those tiny 8 words to be something bigger and deeper than they were? No. The word choice was too specific to even mean it in that context. 

On the tip of Will's tongue was so many words he wanted to yell back at Mike. The variety of responses was almost impressive. He could defend himself and deny it, he could ask Mike why he thought it was a problem, he could confess to it all, he could ask how Mike even knew, or he could stay silent. And in hopes of not giving himself away, Will stayed silent until Mike spoke up again.

More words were exchanged between the two of them, but WIll couldn’t remember them even 2 minutes after the argument ceased. The only thing that resonated with him was obviously that one, tiny little insult that disrupted Will's entire day even more than it had already been ruined. As he biked home in the pounding rain, tears streamed down his face and he thought about the subject more than anyone could think was possible. Why is his sexuality even important anyway? Why is Mike so invested in it that he needs to claim it’s ruining their friendship and his relationships? Why has Will spent so many hours thinking over it and wasted so many tears on it? Pulling up to castle byers, Will tried to clear his mind for a second. But everything in there was a reminder of how his dumb disinterest in girls was ruining his life.


End file.
